As a novice painter, I have been very disappointed and blamed myself for failed pictures, even though most of the time I should have replaced the wrong material with quality.
I recently heard that in the first place is the quality of the paper, then the brush, and finally the paint. In terms of cost, paper is the most expensive item, especially if I want a quality product. It can be up to € 50 per month. Synthetic brushes are quite good and not expensive, they cost 1-5 euros and can be used for months. And my Russian-made Sonnet / White Nights paint is no more expensive than 30 euros for a half-year investment, and it is also of high quality.
I dedicated my last night to experimenting. I have a wide variety of papers of varying quality and I also use watercolor paint, aniline paint and school button paint. I’ve noticed the better the quality of the paper, the more predictable the behavior of the paint on it.
However, a few weeks ago I also bought the worst paper of all time, which is like absorbent paper, plus it ripples a lot from the water. It is also unusable for pen drawing, because the rough surface gets stuck on the tip, and the gel pens leave dashed lines on it.
200 g watercolor paper with watercolors, wet technique, supplemented with watercolor chalk, which I washed a little at the end. This paper is available in large sheets, I need to cut it. It ripples a lot when I use a wet technique. Good enough for small images (less than A / 4), postcards.
180 g paper with a smooth surface, rather poor quality, which is better for drawing. I used aniline, then white tempera, black watercolor chalk and Art Pen.
200 g watercolor paper, watercolors and black chalk, a bit washed. White gel pen doesn't work well so i used white tempera.
The "worst paper" - it's beautifully textured, but very absorbent. On wet paper, the shapes blur before the whole thing dries. I used aniline on it, then white tempera with some pink and black chalk, washed a bit. The result is surprisingly good, the flowers stand out nicely in the soft background. But I had to apply the white paint in several coats because it absorbed the green underneath.
200 g watercolor paper, watercolors, Art Pen, chalk, white gel pen and white tempera. Gel pen works only as lines, not dots.
Smooth paper with watercolor - not too absorbent. After drying, i used deep colors with some white tempera and black chalk, washed a bit.
